We here at the antiselfie advocate kindness towards others to replace the narcissism behind the selfie culture on social media.

But we’d like to pause and remind you:

Kindness to others must begin with kindness to self.

The antiselfie has learned, and continues to learn, this lesson in the hardest ways possible.

We all want to be kind to others. But what do we do when others do not reciprocate, or worse, abuse our kindness?

Then we retreat, and start showing ourselves kindness through practicing self-respect.

Self-respect means honoring pain, boundaries and limits, and listening to the internal or external “ouch” and not dismissing it. To do so is to show kindness to yourself. Your self is sending you a message to care for yourself. Listen to it.

One good question to ask yourself to determine if someone is abusing you, or showing you unacceptable behavior : “Would I allow anyone to treat my child (or any child) that way?”

If the answer is no, then the offending behavior should not be allowed to continue. This may mean leaving a situation or person, reporting the situation or person to authorities, seeking help from trusted people to deal with the abusive person or situation.

Then do something to actively soothe yourself. Take a walk in nature. Soak in the tub. Cook your favorite healthy meal. Do yoga. Talk to a trusted, kind person.

Anything that sends yourself the message that “You are loved. You deserve kindness , care and gentleness. Your well-being is important.”

Like all practices, kindness starts with yourself.

Not knowing to care for yourself, you will be unable to care for others.

Not knowing how to honor your own boundaries, others will end up abusing you.

Not knowing to show compassion for yourself when you’re in pain, you will be unable to show genuine compassion for others, and unable to recognize their pain.

When you show yourself kindness and are able to care for and respect yourself, the ability to be kind, caring and respectful to others arises naturally.

Kindness does not mean being a doormat.

In what ways do you care for yourself? In what ways do you encourage your well-being? Do you hear, and listen, when that small voice inside you sends you a message of pain?

A report says more and more young people in the U.K. are posting disturbing pictures on Instagram or sending them via Snapchat that show them hurting themselves.

The report says young people post the self-harming selfies because they feel they have “no one else to turn to.” Commenting on these selfies may produce feelings of validation and encouragement of the behavior.

A guest in a British television show, who has been cutting herself for 11 years, explains that she does this to “shock” herself out of feeling low, and as a form of “release.”

The gruesome selfies can elicit competitiveness among other self-harmers who view them. They may try and outdo the cutting, said mental health experts.

Others may bully or troll the self-harmers, which in turn may create even more motivation for self-harming.

Self-harming is violence. It is just as bad as committing violence on others. Kindness MUST start with one’s self.

The antiselfie is shocked and saddened by this trend. It MUST stop.

If you are a self-harmer, please seek help from people you trust. This is not healthy for you.

If you see a self-harming selfie, please do not bully, shame, encourage or copy the person who posted it. If you know the person who posted a self-harming selfie, please help them. Suggested options would be: contacting the school counselor and asking for advice on how to deal with it, and how to help the self-harmer.

“On behalf of humanity, you are hereby fined $1 per selfie on charges of self-obsession. All the money goes to fund education for kids who can’t afford college, let alone a $600 self-indulgence device. Donate and join us. Police your friends. There’s a lot of work to be done. Together we can turn vanity into charity.” ~ The Selfie Police’s booking statement

The antiselfie wants to laugh and cry at the same time, as it reads about the Selfie Police.

The Selfie Police is a new program that rides on people’s self-confessed, unabashed vanity to raise funds for impoverished kids who can’t afford to go to college, reports Elite Daily.

It’s so simple, it’s brilliant. (Laughcry here.) For every selfie you snap, you donate a dollar to help poor kids go to college.

The program is of course, voluntary. With the bajillion selfies taken around the word every single day, there really is potential for raising bajillion dollars.

“When we first came up with the idea we were trying to think of how to engage our generation in giving. It’s tricky because we’re such a selfish generation, so the question we asked was not how do we make our generation charitable, but how do we turn selfishness into charity. That’s where Selfie Police was born.” Chas Barton told the Norwich Bulletin.

“We want to engage our generation in helping other kids our age dealing with the same sorts of issues, trying to go to college and school, but who just don’t have the same opportunities we do.”

The concept is praiseworthy. But at the risk of sounding like an obstructionist harpie, the antiselfie has a few observations about this scheme.

First, we reiterate: we LOVE raising funds and helping others. Especially underserved kids aspiring for higher education. In fact, this is the antiselfie’s advocacy, when we aren’t blogging about selfies and antiselfies.

BUT we just aren’t too sure about encouraging the principle of giving to look good, which the Selfie Police seems to be promoting. This program seems to say, it’s okay to be addicted to selfies (translation: narcissistic) as long as you help poor kids?

It’s kind of like drinking. Do you drink in moderation, and know when to stop, or do you regularly stumble out of the bar and black out? Will it make things better if you donated money but continue to have a drinking problem? Probably not.

Let’s pause here for a little self-diagnosis: Do you take selfies in moderation, or do you expend quite a bit of energy on selfie taking and posting? Do you post selfies to get a buzz? How often do you need that high of people liking and commenting on your selfie?

We here at theantiselfie believe, selfie addicts just need a little intervention.

We suggest that instead of using your energy for one selfie, why not instead practice a little kindness? It’s a practice in restraint and proactively reaching out to others in kindness.

We believe that once a selfie addict experiences the genuine fulfillment that springs from having an attitude of “What can I do for you? How can I help you?” instead of “How will this make me look good? How can I attract more and more attention to me?”–then the selfie addiction will naturally taper off.

Yes, let’s raise funds so poor kids can go to college.

But let’s also help ourselves and wean ourselves away from our growing addiction to self and selfies, and start genuinely doing something good for its own sake.

This is one of the best postings I’ve seen. It’s gotten 1,130,718 likes and has been shared 175,611 times on Facebook so far.

This is THE ideal, as far as we here at theantiselfie are concerned.

It spreads an important message that makes a difference. It is a true antiselfie.

We checked out the Facebook page that shared this image. Called Stay Strong, the page posts quotes and pictures that, we imagine, would lift up the spirits of depressed teen-agers going through issues typical at that age.

We’ve read many stories of how social media can cause depression because of all the pictures and messages that might suggest that someone else’s life is better than yours.

Stay Strong is an example of how we think social media is best used. Harnessing its power for good, Stay Strong is pro-kindness, an antiselfie page.

We hope to interview Crissy of New York, New York one day about her page.

On a gray and cold early morning, the sidewalks of an affluent neighborhood were lined with heaps of blankets, cardboard and plastic garbage bags. Underneath those mounds of insulation, the homeless were asleep.

The streets were deserted, except for myself and another man, who was dragging a big blue suitcase with wheels. Both of us were surveying the landscape. Under some of these makeshift bedcovers, there seemed to be more than one person–perhaps a mother and her children? Or siblings? Or lovers down on their luck? Who knew what stories were buried beneath these layers of material.

The man stopped, opened his suitcase and pulled out a pair of jeans. He laid them by one of the heaps. Those jeans would come in handy, somehow, at least to one person.

Here at theantiselfie.com, we love seeing antiselfies in action, online or offline. What is an antiselfie? It’s an act of kindness, an attitude of wanting to be of benefit to others.

How about trying to do an antiselfie today? Let us know how it went. :)

“I want to see more young women holding a fish than holding their camera in front of a bathroom mirror doing a selfie,” Palin said, according to E! online.

Whatever your politics, Palin does make a point, in fact, a point very similar to ours here at theantiselfie.com.

The point is there are a lot better things to do with our lives, no? Like go outdoors and go fishing. Palin was just saying–do something else, drop your device and do something else than bathroom mirror and selfie gazing!

If you’re not into fishing, how about something that benefits others (the opposite of focusing on self too much)–like being kind to others?

Suggestions: help the homeless, feed the hungry, open doors for others, say kind words instead of bashing people, the list is really endless.

Palin’s anti-selfie quote is related to her forthcoming show on the Sportsman Channel scheduled to debut April. The show is about, well, the outdoors.

How many selfies do you take and post in a week? Have you asked yourself why you love taking pics of yourself and posting them?

Maybe I’ve been hanging out too much with monks, nuns, priests, social workers, meditators, yoga people, lay religious and these types who’ve generally built kindness into their lives.

I think it’s why I felt so much anger and disbelief rise up in me as I witnessed this scene in an apartment building.

An older man with salt and pepper hair, and a younger guy obviously coming from a workout, and a couple of older women are headed for the elevator.

The two men rush past the two ladies to enter the elevator. They very clearly see that the ladies are doing their best to catch the elevator. One of them is helping her older companion, who is going as fast as she can with her cane. They’re not very far from the elevator doors.

None of the men make an effort to keep the elevator doors open for these two women. I was right behind these ladies, and I call out to the men in the elevator: “Please hold the doors open.”

The men do nothing. The woman barely makes it, and uses her foot to keep the elevator doors from shutting out her older and slower companion. I look at the two men. It felt like both were deliberately not looking at me or the ladies. It’s like they were pretending we weren’t there.

When did helping older, weaker people go out of style? Couldn’t a few more seconds be spared for an act of courtesy?

Courtesy is the most basic act of kindness we can show others in every day life.

Have you every tried holding open the door for people you don’t know? Has anyone done this for you?

Pictures posted are 90% selfies, smile and pose are usually the same, often there is no actual reason to post the picture, they aren’t connected in any way to an event. Selfies far outnumber pictures that were actually taken by other folks.

Consistent location/check in updates. As if begging to be stalked. Or showing everyone just how busy your social life is.

Mean, snarky posts to make self look superior to others/a situation. (Hey bitch can’t you see I’m in line, get your big as* out of my face.)

Too many postings that announce your love to the world. You and significant other, post coitus. You and significant other, feeding each other ice cream. You and significant other, at the grocery.

There really is nothing inherently wrong about posting these things about yourself and your life. But when these types of postings become consistent, repetitive and frequent, then you know the poster has the syndrome.

The worst type of selfie postings are malicious in motivation. An acquaintance announced, before posting his vacation pics: “Our pics are so cool, these will make everyone look like losers.” Wanting to make others feel inferior–really?

If you think of it, Selfie Syndrome sufferers are probably actually lonely. Sometimes, it feels like they just need someone to talk to, and probably having no one to validate them, seek it from the public at large. They depend on the kindness of “friends” and “followers.” The more likes and retweets, the better.

The antiselfie suggests one possible cure to this syndrome. Perhaps start living a life offline and actually engage people in real life. That way you’re not always seeking approval online, and feeling like you’re all by your lonesome selfie.

What kind of content do you generate on social media? Do you have the Selfie Syndrome?

More on the Selfie Syndrome here: http://www.bestcomputerscienceschools.net/selfies/

See the Selfie Olympians hard at work, perfecting their craft. Feel the thrill of victory, the agony of defeat as these magnificent Selfie Olympians display feats of power and grace that leave one breathless.

Have to admit it, the floating selfie is cool.

But once more, theantiselfie asks–why not use the Herculean effort of creating and posting just one Olympian Selfie to instead post an Antiselfie?

What, you may ask, is an Antiselfie?

It’s a posting on social media of something helpful, useful and kind that might actually help some depressed soul who’s getting even more depressed as he/she scrolls through her Facebook and/or Twitter and/or Instagram and/or Reddit and/or Stumblupon feed, looking at every one else’s so-called picture-perfect lives.

The antiselfie does not hate selfie posters. Instead it seeks to make the world a kinder, gentler place by encouraging people to sacrifice just one selfie for an antiselfie everyday.

Disclosure: Theantiselfie still does post selfies now and then, but they’re nowhere nearly as amazing as these: